Re: Draco Unredeemed and the Cabinet That Won’t Die (long)

[justcarol67]

No: HPFGUIDX 159267

Renee wrote:
<snip>
> What if, for instance, Regulus Black (assuming he's RAB) turned
> against Voldemort because he discovered the purebloods were merely
> used as tools, and this angered him? We don't know why exactly he
> tried to thwart Voldemort, but it doesn't have to be because he
> suddenly realised racism is wrong. Maybe he did, but this doesn't
> necessarily follow from the fact that he changed his mind about
> Voldemort. 
> 
> Likewise, Draco can very well go on believing that purebloods are
> several notches above the rest of the WW, yet come to the conclusion
> this conviction is not worth damaging your soul by killing people.
> This is commendable, but it doesn't make him a wonderful guy. And he
> doesn't have to be. (I'd even go as far as saying that he has a
right to go on considering himself superior to halfbloods and
muggleborns. Though I'm not sure JKR will let him.)   <snip>

Carol responds:
First, I want to protest (in vain, I realize) against the word
"racism" to describe blood prejudice. Race has nothing to do with it,
as Angelina, Dean, Blaise, Lee and others )say, the Patil twins and
Cho Chang) illustrate.  There's not the slightest hint of true racism
in the WW. The prejudice against nonmagical people permeates the WW,
and among Slytherins in general and some non-Slytherin pureblood
families, it extends to Muggleborns as well. But it has nothing to do
with race. "Mudblood" Hermione is a member of the same race as
pureblood Draco (White or Caucasian), and both are members of the same
race as Muggle Dudley. Possibly this prejudice is analogous to racism
in our world, but it isn't identical to it.

Second, I think that what you describe as happening to Draco is most
likely what happened to Regulus. I doubt that he gave up his belief in
pureblood superiority. After all, it was part of his upbringing and
seven years in Slytherin House would have done nothing to change that.
I'm sure he still thought of himself as part of "nature's
aristocracy." But believing that others are inferior to you and
torturing and killing those supposed inferiors are two different
things. As Quirrell says of Snape in SS/PS, he hated you but he didn't
want to kill you. And regarding someone as inferior is even weaker
grounds for killing that person than hating them--except for people
who carry eugenics to an extreme like the advocates of "racial purity"
(again a mistaken concept since European Jews and non-Jewish Germans
are members of the same race and the Aryan race is nonexistent).
Otherwise, people with PhDs in nuclear physics would be killing off
the rest of us. Or, to take a WW example, purebloods would kill off
their house-elves as "inferior beings." Regulus may have believed that
Muggleborns should serve purebloods but drawn the line at killing
them, rather like rich slaveowners in the American South who drew the
line at whipping and otherwise abusing their slaves.

IOW, it's possible to hold views that we postmodern Muggles consider
reprehensible without having a Ku Klux Klan or Nazi mentality, whether
that view is true racism or blood prejudice.

As for Draco, he seems to have thought, until he was actually faced
with doing it, that killing "Mudbloods" and Muggle-loving old fools
(his view of Dumbledore) was perfectly acceptable. I haven't seen him
expressing any concern whatever for his soul. Maybe he doesn't even
know that killing splits the soul (it seems that Tom Riddle didn't
until Slughorn told him) or that Unforgiveable Curses, as we've seen
with the Crouches and Bellatrix, lead to corruption and madness. Or so
it seems to me.

I think that the way to persuade Draco to fight Voldemort is to
persuade him that Voldemort's is the losing side--and that won't be
easy. The alternative is for Voldemort to harm or kill one of Draco's
parents, in which case, he'll want revenge. Otherwise, he'll probably
either break under pressure and do what Voldemort wants or stand there
doing nothing and be killed for being ineffectual. What absolutely
won't happen, IMO, is a change in his views on pureblood superiority
and his interest in Dark Magic.

Carol, hoping that Snape will be the one to point Draco in the right
direction